Unconditional (Masters and Mercenaries #5.5)(42)

“Well, now that I know your plans, I can easily block you.”

Keith snorted a little. “With what? You’re mortgaged to the hilt. You think I haven’t run your financials? You can’t afford to buy out your stockholders.” He started for the door. “Call off your dogs and maybe I won’t start talking about how I’ve looked into your company and think it’s a bad investment. The minute I sell my stock, you’ll see a deep drop. I’ll make a call to some of my friends at the papers and suddenly you’re in free fall. All because I started a little rumor. You should know a man’s reputation is everything. I have many ways to ruin you.”

“That’s my blood. My granddaughter. I can give her more than that little whore ever thought about.”

He pulled out his phone. His assistant answered immediately. “Get me a dinner meeting with Craig Johnson from the Times. I’ve got some stock tips for him.” He hung up. “I hope you survive what I’m about to do to you.”

“Wait!”

But he didn’t. It didn’t matter now. He would ruin this ass if it was the last thing he did.

He kept walking. Maybe revenge could keep him warm at night.



Ashley settled Emily down for her nap. She smoothed her baby girl’s tuft of hair back and watched her for a moment. Her little mouth was moving as though she was sucking a bottle in her sleep. Sweet dreams, my girl.

She wiped away tears. They’d come so frequently lately. It had only been a few days but she missed her Sir.

She took a long breath and stepped back into her tidy little living room where Karina and Jill waited for her. Reports. She’d been getting a ton of them. Someone from McKay-Taggart called at least once a day to update her on what was going on.

“Can I get you something to drink?” That was the polite thing to do. She felt like a zombie, moving through her days in a weird haze of sorrow and fear. She had to remind herself to be polite.

“No, thank you, hon. Please just sit down and join us,” Karina said. “I have some news for you.”

Her gut tightened. God. All the news she’d been given lately had totally sucked ass.

Jill patted the sofa beside her. “Sit down, sweetie. It’s good.”

Ashley sank to the sofa, her hand finding her sister’s. Jillian had been her rock. Jill had given her everything she needed, could possibly want. Everything except Keith’s big arms around her. “All right. Tell me.”

Karina smiled. Outside of the club, she looked different. Dressed in slacks and a tailored shirt, she was cool and professional. In control. “The Reids will no longer be seeking custody of your daughter.”

A huge sigh of relief shook her system. Tears blurred her eyes, and she couldn’t help but shake her head. “How?”

“Keith,” Karina said.

The very name made her heart ache. “Why? I thought he was going to get me in touch with a lawyer.”

“Sometimes the best way to take care of a problem is to create another one. A distraction, shall we say,” Karina explained.

Jill laughed a little. “Of course. Keith went after his company.”

“What does that mean?” She was still trying to process the fact that Keith was doing anything for her at all.

“It means Keith is a ruthless son of a bitch,” Jill replied. “He always has been. Ryan told me Keith is a complete shark when it comes to business. Apparently it translates to his personal life.”

Karina slid a file folder across the coffee table. “He’s very quiet about it, but he’s filthy rich. His parents had some money and Keith turned out to be very smart when it came to investments. He made his first million before he turned twenty-one. He took that and invested it again. And that was when other people started coming to him. He became what they like to call an angel investor. He loans start-ups money in exchange for a piece of the company. He was the investor behind a couple of very popular software companies and search engines.”

She tried to grasp that. She’d figured he was wealthy. He’d been the man to invest in Ryan’s latest project, so he had to have some money. She hadn’t imagined it was so much. Her childhood insecurities crept up on her. Maybe it had been more than the fact that she had Emily. A rich man likely wanted someone more refined. “I understand. He’s got a lot of money.”

“His money didn’t guarantee him a terrific life, Ashley. I did the background check on him before Ian allowed him provisional membership,” Karina explained. “It’s not something I would normally share, but I think there are some things in Keith’s background you need to know.”

“I know he had a baby.” She could still see the hollow look in his eyes when he’d left.

“What?” Jill turned, obviously startled.

So no one knew. It was a secret he guarded. It was a secret that seemed to be eating him up from the inside.

“He was married to a woman named Lena Olsen when he was twenty-one. They seemed to be happy for a year or so and then she got pregnant,” Karina stated, her voice lowering in sympathy.

“How did the baby die?” She had to know. Her heart ached at the thought. She had no idea what she would do if she lost Emily.

“He had a rare genetic condition that wasn’t caught in utero. They were both young. Hospitals don’t routinely do an amniocentesis or a genetic work-up if both parents are young and healthy. The baby was a boy named John Michael. He died within hours of birth. From what I can tell, Keith stopped speaking to his parents around that time and he and his wife divorced within six months of the child’s death.”